The Verdict
Together AI provides the fastest and most cost-effective way to run open-source models in production. Their inference infrastructure consistently delivers lower latency and higher throughput than self-hosted alternatives, with pricing that undercuts the major cloud providers. For developers who want Llama, Mixtral, or other open models without managing GPU infrastructure, Together AI is the strongest option.
What It Does
Together AI offers an inference API compatible with OpenAI’s format, supporting over 100 open-source models including Llama 3, Mixtral, Qwen, DeepSeek, and Stable Diffusion. Beyond inference, the platform provides fine-tuning capabilities, a GPU cluster marketplace for custom training, and dedicated endpoints for consistent performance. The API supports text generation, code completion, embeddings, image generation, and vision models.
What We Liked
- Speed: Together AI’s custom inference stack delivers tokens faster than most competitors for equivalent model sizes, particularly on mixture-of-experts models.
- OpenAI-compatible API: Switching from OpenAI to Together AI requires changing one line of code — the base URL — making migration trivial for existing applications.
- Model selection: Access to 100+ models through a single API means you can compare and switch between models without infrastructure changes.
- Fine-tuning: The ability to fine-tune open-source models and serve them through the same API creates a complete workflow from customization to deployment.
What We Didn’t Like
- No free tier: Unlike Groq, Together AI requires payment from the first API call. The minimum spend isn’t high, but free experimentation is limited.
- Rate limits: Lower-tier accounts face rate limiting during peak periods that can affect production workloads.
- Documentation depth: While the API is simple, advanced features like custom model deployment and fine-tuning hyperparameter guidance could be better documented.
Pricing Breakdown
Together AI uses pay-per-token pricing that varies by model. Llama 3.3 70B runs approximately $0.88 per million tokens. Mixtral 8x22B costs roughly $1.20 per million tokens. Fine-tuning starts at $5 per million training tokens. Dedicated endpoints are priced based on GPU allocation.
The Bottom Line
Together AI is the production-grade inference platform for teams that want open-source model performance without infrastructure management. The speed, pricing, and API compatibility make it the practical choice for applications that have outgrown free tiers but do not need the proprietary features of GPT or Claude.
